Ohio State's Rose-Colored Redemption

Trick Plays, Muddy Fields and a Farewell to a Legend Cap Wild New Year's Day of College Football

By

Darren Everson

Updated Jan. 2, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

To all you bowl bashers, playoff proponents and perpetually outraged college-football fans: We hope you didn't sit around Friday tending to your headache and ignoring the bowl games. If so, you missed an incredible afternoon.

Of course, you might argue that the drama would have increased tenfold had these been tournament games, not one-off matchups. Someday, we might just learn whether that is true—and if, in the process, it renders college football's regular season as dull as college basketball's.

In the meantime, let us enjoy our bowls.

ENLARGE

Kenjon Barner of the Oregon Ducks gets taken down by the Ohio State defense at the 96th Rose Bowl on Friday.
Getty Images

After Bobby Bowden got his victorious farewell and the Big Ten Conference acquitted itself well in two early bowl games, Ohio State's 26-17 victory over Oregon in the Rose Bowl was a cathartic, game-changing outcome for the Buckeyes and their beleaguered conference, which had lost six straight BCS games.

Sometimes in sports, events force you to let go of long-held notions about people's shortcomings. Like the idea that Alex Rodriguez can't get a clutch hit, for example, or that Kobe Bryant can't win a title without Shaquille O'Neal. For the Buckeyes, long criticized for losing big games, and Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor—a heralded recruit whom fans were starting to consider a disappointment—this Rose Bowl was such a moment.

In a sense, Ohio State beating Oregon somewhat convincingly is what we should have expected. Over the past five years, 63% of Ohio State's scholarship signees were given four- or five-star ratings as high schoolers by Rivals.com, a Web site that covers recruiting. For Oregon, 24% were. Nationally, Ohio State's recruiting classes ranked no worse than 15th during this span. Oregon had only one that ranked that high.

Given the pedigrees of their players, we should expect a team like Ohio State to handle an opponent like Oregon.

That just the opposite was widely anticipated speaks to the reputation Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel has built not only for losing in big games, but for making less of his offensive talent than other top teams do.

WSJ's BCS Rundown

Ohio State showed more creativity and took more risks than usual, though, against the Ducks. The Buckeyes' first six play calls were passes. Mr. Pryor nearly was intercepted on his first attempt, which ordinarily might convince Mr. Tressel to never throw over the middle. But the Buckeyes kept throwing and took a 10-0 lead, which held them in good stead when Oregon's high-powered offense in-evitably got going.

Eventually, Mr. Pryor—who threw for 266 yards, ran for 72 and was the offensive player of the game—hit DeVier Posey on a 17-yard scoring play midway through the fourth quarter that made it 26-17 and sealed the game.

Big Day for Big Ten

One of the great misunderstandings in college football is that the Big Ten's teams have trouble winning bowl games generally, and that they are especially out of their depth in games against teams from the Southeastern Conference.

In fact, the Big Ten does just fine year after year—in the early New Year's Day bowls that no one remembers. (It's the big games that have been the embarrassments.) Over the past dozen seasons, the Big Ten is now 13-11 against the SEC in the Outback and Capital One bowls. That is a winning record over a significant time span against upper-level SEC teams in SEC country.

This dynamic was on display again Friday, as Penn State defeated LSU 19-17 in the muddied Capital One. And even though Auburn outlasted Northwestern in a 38-35 overtime victory in the Outback Bowl, the Wildcats amassed 625 yards to Auburn's 425. Anyone who watched the two games would be forced to conclude that the supposedly superior level of play throughout the SEC is an illusion.

Of course, the Big Ten might've dropped both games if coach Les Miles's team were better at clock management.

Down two, LSU got the ball back at its own 41 with just under a minute left, but again the offense was bizarrely inept at the two-minute drill, just as they were in a loss against Mississippi earlier this season. This is the sort of bugaboo that enrages fans—who are always inclined to second-guess coaches—and could one day imperil Mr. Miles's standing if it keeps up.

Another myth that needs to die: the belief that Big Ten teams are boring and stuck in the Stone Ages strategically. Northwestern put on arguably the most entertaining bowl performance since Boise State's classic Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma following the 2006 season.

The Wildcats threw an outrageous 78 passes, tied the game on a trick-play two-point conversion that involved a reverse and a pass, and then tried to win the game on a fake field goal in overtime.

The Big Ten's year-by-year performance against the SEC in the Outback and Capital One games, which typically match the conferences' third- and fourth-best teams (the top two often wind up in the Bowl Championship Series) suggests the depth and quality of play across the Midwest is equal to the sport's most-feared conference. If not better. The problem has been the lack of powerhouse teams at the top.

Bowden Goes Out in Style

The image of the day, the one fans most hoped to see, was the Florida State Seminoles giving retiring coach Bobby Bowden a triumphant send-off via their come-from-behind victory over West Virginia in the Gator Bowl.

No matter whether one believes that Mr. Bowden, 80, should've stepped aside years ago, or that his teams too often skirted the sport's rules, there is no denying that his 34 years at Florida State represented one of the most entertaining and impressive eras college football has ever seen.

There are two moments that sum up Mr. Bowden's time at Florida State—one that showcased his Seminoles' once-remarkable skill and ingenuity, the other that spoke to the loose ship critics have long accused him of running.

In September 1991, top-ranked Florida State traveled to Ann Arbor for a showdown with No. 3 Michigan.

Years before, Mr. Bowden had built his reputation on games like this—taking the Seminoles on the road to places like Nebraska and Ohio State and winning.

This time, they didn't just win. They won 51-31. They ran an interception back for a touchdown on the second play of the game. They ran a trick-play pass to the quarterback, a play they stole from Florida. (Mr. Bowden named the play Crocodile, he said, "because we got it from Steve Spurrier and don't want to give the Gators credit.")

Perhaps more so than any other, the game against Michigan demonstrated the extent of the Seminoles' powers. "If there are any doubters," Florida State cornerback Terrell Buckley said after the rout, "they need to go to a psycho ward and have their heads treated."

The other quintessential moment—the one that speaks to the kind of operation the Seminoles ran—came before the 2000 Sugar Bowl, which served as the national-title game for the 1999 season.

Days before the game, a few Seminoles missed curfew, among them star kicker Sebastian Janikowski.

Florida State, of course, had a history with kickers.

In 1991 and 1992, the Seminoles saw games lost to Miami on sub-40-yard kicks that sailed wide right.

Now armed with a kicker so good that he went to the NFL as a junior, Mr. Bowden was not going to let a curfew cost him his second national championship.

So one of the rule-breakers was permitted to start. Mr. Bowden didn't even bother trying to spin the blatant double standard.

"I like him," he said of Mr. Janikowski, who hails from Poland. "Sure, it's favoritism, but we have an international rule."

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